Pinnacle has upgraded its HD Stick and HD Pro Stick USB tuners. The tuners now include the ability to receive and decode ClearQAM cable signals in addition to NTSC analog and ATSC digital broadcasts. The HD Pro Stick can also receive analog FM radio broadcasts.

The Pinnacle HD Ultimate Stick, which has on-board flash memory, already had ClearQAM capability, although users have to download beta software/firmware from the Pinnacle Web site to add ClearQAM capability.

The new HD stick and HD Pro Stick software includes what Pinnacle calls “a trial version” of support for MPEG-4 for output to a PSP or iPod.

The Pinnacle Web site does not mention what tuner and demodulator chips are used in the new USB tuners. The HD Ultimate Stick uses an Xceive tuner with an AMD (ATI) demodulator. The older HD Pro Stick used an LG demodulator.

Visiting the Best Buy Web site, I noticed the new HD Pro Stick was available in some stores.

Print

Email

Share

Comments

Post New CommentIf you are already a member, or would like to receive email alerts as new comments are
made, please login or register.

Enter the code shown above:

(Note: If you cannot read the numbers in the above
image, reload the page to generate a new one.)